Sinful (WICKED #2) | ✓

39

ALEX COULD TASTE THE beginning of the end as he walked inside the room. It was bittersweet on his tongue, like childhood photos collecting dust in the attic. For a vague moment he wondered what had happened to the polaroid camera they had bought years ago, but it didn't matter, he supposed. In the end it was gone, just like many things between them were. It was the first time the admission didn't break his heart.

Ava had been with her back towards him, but she finally turned around, expression unreadable.

"I -" she began, swallowing as she collected herself," I didn't mean to pull you apart. I told myself to leave when we started fighting again, but here we are."

He couldn't help but feel grateful as he looked at her, for the simple fact that she was even speaking to him right now. Despite their problems, he knew her like the back of his hand. Ava didn't do forgiveness, she didn't do second chances, but more importantly, she didn't show vulnerability. Yet here she was, no snarky comments leaving her lips as she looked at him, words so sincere he felt the guilt burn in his throat at how angry he had been before.

The reason she was even standing here at all was clear though. In all the years they had known each other they never had uttered an apology. Fights were ended with him climbing the tree in front of her window and knocking, not by resolving them. No, they screamed and then pretended it never had happened. Acknowledging it made it real after all.

He couldn't pretend it wasn't real anymore now. Not with how much he was suffering under it, how much his friends kept being involved in it. Not now Elisabeth was there too. Still, he wasn't going to pretend she was the main reason for it all. This all had been a long time coming. It had been his fault for trying to ignore it for so long. In a way it felt like losing Ava would be like losing his mother all over again.

When he closed his eyes he could almost hear the soft humming, his head on her lap as she stroked his hair and told him bedtime stories. His father got angry whenever he heard she was coddling him, as he said. He was five. More than anything it stung how difficult it was to recall his mother's voice now, while his father's screams were etched in his brain. It was more frustration at many things which he expressed on him, his mother had said, a sad note to her voice. She never said it to pardon his anger, a certain mourning to her voice, as if she had lost the person he was in the stress of life.

Alex didn't think his father was a bad person, honestly. Did he think he was a good person? No, but would he have been this funny if he had had a loving father? Also no. He resisted the urge to make a joke, because dealing with serious situations was something he wasn't used to at all. Something distracted him then, bubbles appearing in the swimming pool on their left. For a moment he thought he saw two noses peeking through above the edge of the pool, but he was obviously hallucinating, because they were very much home alone.

"Alex?" Ava said, following his gaze," what are you looking at?"

"Nothing," Alex said, shaking his head," I got distracted for a second."

He breathed out then, searching for the right words to bridge the yearlong gap between them. Another apology would be too much, but he was sorry, for how he had put too much expectations on their relationship, for how their friendship had been put at stake, for everything that had gone wrong. Most of all though he was glad to have had her in his life, because despite all of the fights, Ava had always been a calming presence to him.

In the end, he had truly just missed having his friend in his life. He parted his lips, but choked on the nostalgia for a second. It was only when she raised an eyebrow that he managed to compose himself.

"Thank you," he said then, not needing any more words for her to understand it was for more than just her standing here.

She glanced at him, eyes unreadable as she nodded.